Netherlands & Cape Verde
Cape Verdean could succeed assassinated Dutch party leader

afrol News, 7 May - One day after the assassination of Dutch right wing politician Pim Fortuyn, his one-man movement, which might get around 20 percent of the votes in next week's election, is looking for a new party leader. The number two on the anti-immigration party's candidate list is a Cape Verdean immigrant, 27-year-old João Valera.

The party, List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), is to get together today to decide on who will be its new leader. Valera is one of the candidates, although numbers three, Janssen van Raay, and four, Volgens De Jong, of the list of candidates are seen as favourites by Dutch media. 

João Valera today told Dutch television that he had become scared after the assassination of Fortuyn in Hilversum yesterday. He placed Fortuyn in the hall of fame. "First Luther King, than Kennedy and now its Fortuyn." 

Valera however has not made any statements concerning his personal ambitions. According to reports quoted by the BBC, Valera was given this position partly to help Fortuyn fend off accusations of racism. Valera however is a successful businessman and has held a high profile in Dutch media after Fortuyn's killing. 

Although the three-month-old party has made headlines with its anti-immigration policy ("Holland is full") and coarse comments ("Islam is backward"), it distanced itself clearly from racism. One principal policy was fully integrating existing immigrants in the Netherlands. On the economic area, Fortuyn's policies were conservative.

Fortuyn, himself an open homosexual, distanced himself from the extreme right-wing. At the local elections in Rotterdam, where he for the first time presented his list, the LPF won 30 percent of the votes. Also relatively many immigrants reportedly voted for the LPF.

While the Netherlands are in shock over their first political assassination in modern history, the LPF now is carefully trying to establish a party from a one-man-movement without a head. Dutch-Cape Verdean João Valera might just emerge leader of one of Netherlands' biggest parties within the next days.